Emacs 22.3 ignores setq default-directory

[Markus Heller]

Hello,

I just installed Emacs 22.3 under Win XP using the precompiled
binary.  Everything works, my _emacs is read and all customization
such as AuCTeX works fine.

the only thing that's being ignored is the line

(setq default-directory "h:")

which works fine in Emacs 22.1.

Any idea as to why and how I can define my home directory?

Thanks and Cheers
Markus

PS:  Here's the message buffer after staring emacs:

("C:\\Program Files\\emacs-22.3\\bin\\emacs.exe")
Loading encoded-kb...done
Loading c:/Program Files/emacs-22.3/site-lisp/tex-site.el
(source)...done
Loading easy-mmode...done
Loading paren...done
For information about GNU Emacs and the GNU system, type C-h C-a.